PhD project: Railway Asset Degradation and Management Modelling for Climate Change

The University of Nottingham is offering a fully supported PhD position within the Faculty of Engineering, supervised by Rasa Remenyte-Prescott. This research project focuses on integrating climate change effects—such as temperature variations, humidity, and extreme weather—into railway bridge asset degradation and management modelling. The successful candidate will employ physics-based formulations, probabilistic models, and regional climate projections from UKCP18 to evaluate component deterioration and system-level risks. The applicant is expected to hold a top-tier degree in engineering, mathematics, or a related discipline and drive forward innovative computational and probabilistic deterioration models.

• Develop probabilistic models to simulate railway bridge component degradation under varying environmental conditions.
• Integrate regional and national climate projections, such as UKCP18 data, into asset deterioration frameworks.
• Examine atmospheric and pitting corrosion, thermal cycling, fatigue, and coating degradation processes influenced by climate change.
• Evaluate systemic interdependencies to predict condition-state evolution ranging from baseline ageing to pessimistic climate scenarios.
• Collaborate with academic supervisors and disseminate research findings through academic publications and technical reports.